I dreamt all three of my children before they were born.
Now don’t click that little x. I am the most skeptical, non-hocus-pocus person you’ll ever meet. Promise. It comes standard with my RBF. (That was for a special friend, but I figure you may as well enjoy a laugh at my expense too.)
So, sanity aside, I did dream up all three of my kids before I ever met them. At three different stages of…
No surprise, but I’m a daydreamer. It’s not an easy thing to hide. My school reports often cited that I tended to wander off without actually leaving the classroom, and seeing as I’m confessing it all, I may as well admit that I probably still wander off about a hundred and sixteen times a day.
But there was a period of time in my life where I was able to focus. You see I used to be this really…
I want to start by saying that my life is crazy right now. And I’m leaning towards using that as an excuse for my lack of presence. Presence on my page, existence in the blogosphere and a whereabouts with the words I throw around this place. This place that locks my sanity down.
But, I can’t.
I can’t do that, because, just like everyone else, my life is always crazy. Isn’t that what life is? Unless you’re a character on a page, sketched with an unbreakable status quo, life is eventful. It’s supposed to be. We are kept moving through its cogs, spinning and turning, suspended upside down at times, because we are living. Living and learning. Growing.
We practice and perfect. Train and triumph. Realize and rectify.
Producing. Developing. Cultivating.
It’s why we read books and run marathons, join teams and take tests. Eat Flax and wear lipstick, crave new music and paint our walls. It’s why we hang on.
Emerging. Budding. Rising.
We don’t climb through mundane. We don’t stretch with a lack of reach. We sit stiffened without attempts to transition.
Forever. Farther. Forward.
We move.
With that, I leave you with my latest Women on Writing Contest Interview and a few photos of my children leading the way to where the wild things bloom as big as their minds allow them room.
My son Evan, 15, loves to sketch
He’s a details kind of guy, drawing microscopic characters since he was 4. His sketches have gotten larger, but no less intricate
Anders with his High School diploma
Anders hanging with Evan before heading off to his dry grad dinner/dance celebration
Ava with her elementary school diploma, her “Citizenship” award and her “Work Habits” award
Raedy to head off to High School
And, just because Miley has been never been far away throughout raising my kids, I can’t help but also leave you with this…Yes, I’m sorry.
The Climb
I want to start by saying that my life is crazy right now. And I’m leaning towards using that as an excuse for my lack of presence.
When my daughter was four, I made her a promise. She was distraught over her dad leaving for business trip and I told her she could sleep with me anytime he was away.
From. Then. On.
And. She. Did.
She has slept beside me, over the past nine and half years many, many times. More times than I can count. She kicks, punches, head butts and talks. She grinds her teeth reminding me the stresses she’s…
Years ago, when my kids were just tiny specs of what they are now, a best friend of mine would drive from her house, nearly an hour away, just to cook dinner for me.
At least once a week.
She invited herself of course, as all good friends do. In my state, it never would have entered my mind to entice another person into my varying vortex. When it began, I had only a single child. The task was…
The Band-Aids are blue. Four that I can see. One masking each little knee poking from below her skirt’s hem and one on each elbow, like patches covering holes on an old man’s cardigan. The rest are hidden, but I know they’re there. They’re always there.
Back one night as she lay on her firm cot, she whispered into the lamp’s soft glow; “They can change, you know. When I’m happy, they turn…
I entered a contest a while back. I didn’t win. Or even place this time. Which stings. But it’s okay. It’s okay, because I always pay extra to receive a serving of critique alongside my disappointment. And sometimes. When I’m lucky. It ends up making my disappointment taste like dessert.
Yes, there were words like, uneven and cliche (ouch) but the words that really stood out for me were…wonde…
I tend to write dark stuff. Most of my stories are either dark fantasy or horror, and many of them don’t end well for at least some of the cast. This once prompted Nimue to comment that all my stories seem sad.
In truth, I try to weave a fair amount of humor into my stuff, and the more I write, the less consistently tragic my stories have become. Still, if you write horror, you’re going to…